


Piece By Piece

by Illusions_and_reality



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), The Hotdaga - Fandom
Genre: Hurts So Good, I used Ryan's name, M/M, Mike gets hurt, Mike is a blushy boy, The Hotdaga (Buzzfeed Unsolved), and sad, but it should be fun, but still, hah, have fun reading this, he gets hurt a lot, i'm having a great time, instead of a normal swear, it was fun, ngl I loved writing this, only once, some doctor-y stuff, that I don't know how it works, that it was funny, the person who helped me edit thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illusions_and_reality/pseuds/Illusions_and_reality
Summary: So, Mike gets hurt a lot. He's at the doctor's a lot.And there's this one doctor, in particular, he likes to see.





	Piece By Piece

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the end of this thinking of my new spouse.
> 
> I hope they like this.

The first time Goondis had the pleasure of seeing Aviator Soup #3571573972 was an obvious accident. A gunshot wound, thank God the guy hadn’t been too close, he would have been way worse off if that was the case.

 

The guy had been a little flustered when he woke up, as were most people when they passed out from pain and woke up days later in a crappy military hospital bed. They had talked a bit, Goondis had figured out the man’s secret (Soup was only sixteen, but no one was going to believe the doctor) and it had been, overall, successful. 

 

Great!

 

And Dr. Goondis was only a little sad he wouldn’t see his new favourite patient again.

  
  


A few weeks later and he had seen Soup again.

Burns littered his face and chest and arms and he had frozen a little due to them being in, you know, space and Soup had been thrown from the ship. 

 

Ninety seconds out there and he could have been dead. Lovely.

 

Goondis had taken him to a bed away from others and drawn the curtains, busying himself with the monitors and keeping a watchful eye on the boy. He didn’t want to go soft for a guy he’s just met, but goddamn was he feeling soft.

 

When Soup woke up it had nearly given Goondis a heart attack. 

 

“Sweet baby Bergara who hates on us all, couldn’t you have given me a warning?” He asks quietly and rushes over, watching Soup rub the sleepiness out of his eyes.

  
“It hurts.” Is all he says and Ernie can feel his heart drop through the floor. He’s just a kid, just a kid and he’s been shot and burned and Goondis can tell he was abused for some part of his life, by the way he holds himself and talks to the doctor, as if he's a little afraid of everything bad that could happen if he said the wrong thing.

 

So he pats the boy on the leg, whispers something reassuring and tells him that he’ll be back in just a moment.

 

The kid makes a move to stop him, holds onto the sleeve of his uniform and let’s go as soon as Ernie looks back to say something, look at him, stay with him.

 

Goondis catches his hand and smiles, giving it a small squeeze before going back over, “You need anything?” He asks quietly, just above the noise of the rest of the patients and doctors and nurses. 

Soup shakes his head and he looks down at the sheets, gently taking his hand away. A faint pink is high on his cheeks and Goondis will have to ask him about it later.

 

For right now though, he’d go get some pain meds.

  
  


When Ernie comes back the kid looks close to tears, eyes closed, the skin where there isn’t burn marks a pale pink, and a thin sheen of sweat covering his body - but that might be because he was burned, or because he was flung into outer space for a good minute. 

His hands are in front of his face too, which is also saddening.

 

Goondis slowly walks up and place a hand on the mattress, then on Soup’s leg to let him know that he’s here now, it’s alright.

 

The kid doesn’t look alright. 

 

“What’s your name?” Goondis asks and the kid takes his hands away from his face, staring at the palms and thinking. Maybe deciding if he should trust the stranger, the doctor, the man standing beside him.

 

“Mike, my name is Mike.” He whispers and his, Mike’s, hands fall back onto his face and Ernie decides it’s best to stop asking him questions for a while.

  
  


“How do sword swallowers swallow their swords?” Mike asks. 

 

It’s been a long day for both of them. Mike had been poisoned, to the best of Ernie’s knowledge and he had been listening to the boy throw up for about nine hours now and he’s reaching the end of his shift.

 

“Why the fuck would you need to know this?” he asks, looking up over his fourth, no, maybe it’s his fifth cup of coffee, whatever, in the last two hours. 

 

He’s tired, to say the least.

 

Mike shrugs, looking over at Ernie with tired green eyes and skin so pale all of the millions of freckles on his skin seem to stand out like stars. He’s shaking and his body is lurching and he’s,  _ he’s puking again, Jesus Christ. _

 

Ernie sighs and pulls out his phone wiping off the screen, looking it up and starting to explain, pausing every once in a while to let Mike have a moment when he’s suddenly hit with an important question.

 

“Mike, when’s your birthday?” Ernie asks and Mike makes a face before hurling whatever bile he has left in his stomach.

 

“I- I dunno, why?” He says and pauses, “Yeah, I have no idea.”.

 

Ernie looks up at him, the boy who’s probably not a boy anymore, “It’s been almost three years since the war started, so, you’re eighteen now. Maybe nineteen. I dunno. The point is; Happy birthday, I guess.”.

 

Mike looks up at the ceiling and counts the months he’s been trapped in this seemingly never-going-to-end war that is still, sadly, better than home, moving his fingers with the numbers subconsciously, “Oh,” He says and looks back at Goondis, “Thank you for telling me.”.

 

And then he’s throwing up again, whimpering when he comes back up for air.

  
  


“If I get, uh, cut by a rusty thingy, what should I do?” Mike’s voice floats to Ernies ears, making him turn around and look over the man suspiciously.

 

“Did you cut yourself on a rusty thingy?”.

“Maybe?”

“Get on the table.”

 

Mike visibly winced as he moved his side, jumping up to get on the table and sighing when he was there, kicking his legs with a small smile. Blood was seeping through his shirt, “You gonna tell me about what I should do?”.

 

Goondis nodded and looked around for a syringe, finding one in the drawers and looking for a bottle of- ah! There it was. 

“Take off your shirt, please.” He said, looking back at Mike, smiling over his shoulder.

 

He could hear the flustered little “What?” and tried to hold back a smile, tapping the point of the needle against the top of the bottle and closing it with one hand, “Take off your shirt. The cut is in your side, yes?”.

 

Mike was a pretty pink colour, almost like a rose they would have seen in a flower shop on earth, it was cute to see him blush.

 

Mike played with the hem of the blue tee he had on, the side looked a deep purple now, getting ready to tug it off.

“You sure?” He asked, face flushing, even more when Goondis nodded, a small smile on playing on the doctor’s lips and he lifted the shirt up over his head.

 

Goondis walked over with the syringe in hand, looking over the wound, “I’m gonna give you this,” He said quietly, looking over Mike’s face for any sign of fear, pleased when there was none, “And then I’m going to clean the wound. The shot is just in case, okay?”.

 

No fear, just a man who was so pink around the neck and face and shoulders and chest he almost glowed in the bright white hospital lights. It was adorable.

 

Ernie gave Mike’s shoulder a squeeze, cleaned the area, and then gave him the shot, smiling a little as he pulled away.

  
  


Mike was helped into the room by another doctor, Goondis knew that much. It shouldn’t have made him feel weird, but, emotions were weird so it doesn’t matter. What mattered is that Mike was there, on his table, and he had a broken leg. Broken by a bullet fired from who knows where and now he was dying.

 

Mike was grunting every time something moved enough to cause vibrations, it caused a shift in his leg and Ernie couldn’t blame him. That shit hurt.

 

“Mike, can you hear me?” Goondis asked and he walked over, letting the younger man hold his hand, squeeze his hand, “I’m gonna help you out. You’re gonna be okay. Worse case scenario we have to replace the bone with some steel, but that’ll be a cool thing to talk about.”.

 

Mike cracked a small smile, and everything was okay. Ernie’s head was clearer and he could breathe easier now. 

 

“You’re going to be okay,” He promised and gave Mike another shot, this one full of anesthetic and held his hand as they wheeled him to surgery and watched Mike's consciousness slowly drip down the drain in the floor.

 

He looked peaceful, he would for a while.

  
  


Goondis hisses when he sees what had 2happened to the bone, a bullet had run right into the bone, part of it was shattered and Mike is definitely going to have something put in to keep his leg together.

 

Ernie just hoped the man would get out okay.

  
  


“Ernie?”.

 

Goondis turned around in his chair at the mention of his name. The voice was cracked and in pain and he was so obviously hurting. Goondis rolled over and smiled down at him.

 

“Hey, Soup, you feeling okay?” He asks and it doesn't feel like enough, he feels like he should be hugging Mike, laughing in relief and leaning down to kiss- woah. That's not where he was trying to go.

 

“Hurts, in my leg. Feels heavy.” Mike mumbles and tries to sit up, a gush of air whooshing out from in between his teeth, “Don’t like it.”.

 

It takes a while but Goondis convinces Mike not to stand up, tells him that it’ll all be okay soon, and he doesn’t know if he’s lying or not when he says this, but Mike is sleeping again and that’s all that matters right now.

  
  


Mike has gotten significantly better during his time with Goondis, more lively, walking more, laughing more, grumbling when he has to take meds because  _ he's fine, Ernie. _

 

He's not really fine, but that's not the point.

 

Mike is walking around the room, less reliant on crutches now, but he still has them tucked under his arms just in case, and he must not be thinking straight because-

 

“You're cute.” He says, looking at Ernie with a trace of regret.

Goondis says a quick pardon as he turns away from another patient, looking over at him.

 

Mike drops his crutches down to the floor and makes a run for it, wobbly and blushing harder than ever as he falls. Sprawling in the ground as his leg gives up on him and he starts to crawl away with just his arms, surprisingly fast.

 

He looks like a wiggly worm.

 

That's all Goondis can think about right now. 

A would be camouflaged worm if he wasn't against white tile.

 

Mike somehow finds the strength to get up again and run, looking a bit like a tomato, but all in all, he's running quite good. At least Goondis did his job right.

 

Mike rounds the corner and comes back, breathing a little heavily and smiling.

 

“I'm cute?” Ernie asks and Mike immediately looks away, shaking his head.

 

“I don't know what you're talking about, I said nothing of the sort. I'm a little cooky right now so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt.” He mumbles and walks around a little more, swaying when he finally stops and looking up at Ernie, eyes half-closed and a small smile on his face.

 

Ernie thinks for a moment, grinning a little, 

“You're really out of it right now, huh.”.

A nod.

“Did I give you too much anesthesia?”.

“You're the only anesthesia I need.”.

 

Ernie laughs a little and dragged Mike back over to his bed and sits him down, pretending to look over a few spots,

“Alright, all you need is a few painkillers and you're ready to go!”.

 

Mike's face falls a little, then lights up, “Or I could take you and stay for a while?”.

 

Ernie sputters a little, his face turning bright pink as he looks around and back at Mike.

There is no hesitation, he probably doesn't even know what he's saying right now.

 

“Mike, go to bed.”.

“Come to bed with me.” The small smile grows 

wider.

It's almost infuriating.

 

Almost.

 

“Call me when you're awake and in pain and tell me some of your thoughts then, okay? I'll listen, I promise.” Ernie whispers and, in a moment of pure instinct, reach out and runs a hand through Mike's hair.

  
  


It's been three more weeks and Mike is about to go back to the field, and Goondis is going with him. They need a doctor on Mike's ship, or so the government was told, but the number of times Mike got hurt was a good decoy of their actual reason.

 

They both needed a friend, and they're sort of friends. Not friends by circumstance, well… maybe a little, but still. Friends.

 

Friends.

The word feels weird on Ernie's tongue as he says it for the first time, aboard the Minestrone and fiddling with the controls, setting them for a slightly different destination because they got new information.

 

It's been a slow day, a slow week of sleepless nights and tired mornings and naps in chairs from time to time, but it's nice.

 

Ernie is closer to Mike now, seeing him every day, in the heat of battle and laughing his ass off at stupid jokes.

And he doesn't want to ruin it.

 

Until Mike goes and does it for him. Leaning over in his chair and just… giving him a kiss. 

 

Soft and sweet.

 

And this is so much better than ruining it for them, kissing is something that Ernie can get behind.

 

He kisses back and closes his eyes, chasing after Mike when he pulls away, a small whine clear in the quiet that surrounds them.

 

_ What a perfect way to end _ , he thinks as they both go back in for another, noses bumping against cheeks and breathing in each other's breath.

 

A perfect way to end.

 

the door gets thrown open and they pull apart quickly, blushing a little and looking to the noise.

 

Two people walk through the door, and maybe they didn't notice, maybe they didn't look through the little window and see something, but fuck.

 

Ernie is scared.

 

And it's not like he should be, but, it's not like homophobia isn't a thing anymore, it's just a less common thing.

 

“You two need to sleep and don't talk back to me captain. You know it's true.” One of the members of their crew, Jack, walks closer to them and doesn't act like anything is different.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ernie can see Mike's mouth close, face filled with… fear.

Mike hasn't been afraid, not once in the four years Ernie's known him. 

 

They get up and let the crew take over, the world feels slow and Ernie's head is spinning as they finally stumble through the door.

 

A gentle hand reaches out and hooks its finger around his, and Goondis looks over, following the small tug.

 

“Yeah?” he asks quietly, head tilted a little to the side, and Mike responds with a small tug to lead him to his room.

There's a small smile playing on Mike's lips as they move, it's shy more than anything. 

 

Ernie complies, letting Mike take him into the small room and closing the door behind him as 

 

Mike fidgets in the middle of the room.

It's almost completely bare.

Sure it's clean, extremely clean, but there's nothing personal in it. Not even a book.

 

Mike looks up, and down, and up again, clearly nervous as he spins, his arms lifted slightly, in a circle,

 

“Hello. My name is Mike Soup. I am fighting in a war and I have nearly died plenty of times over these past four years.” He says and looks Ernie straight in the eyes, taking a deep breath, “I am twenty now, but I don't exactly know when my birthday is. Ernesto Gordon Goondis is my best friend and we just kissed and I would love to kiss him again. Even if I am afraid of what might happen to both of us if we do.”.

 

Mike finishes quietly, shaking a little and it's an odd sight to see.

 

He looks small in this room, white walls seeming to stretch far above his head as he stands there. 

 

Ernie steps closer and reaches out to cup Mike's face in his hands, running his thumbs over the man's cheekbones and kissing him softly on the forehead.

And then on the lips.

 

Mike stands there and kisses back, relaxing a little as time goes on, hands fisted in Ernie's shirt.

  
  


They end up on the bed, sleepy and warm, Ernie's telling Mike a small story, a happy one, and everything feels… It feels like it should.

Safe.

That's the word.

They feel safe for the first time in these long four years of too much… everything.

But maybe now it'll be better, it'll feel okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, guys. I really do appreciate every time I see a new read, and comments make my day.


End file.
